Playscripts Collection, 19th and early 20th centuries

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Summary

Title:
THE PLAYSCRIPTS COLLECTION
Dates:
19th and early 20th centuries
Creators:
Language:
English.
Preferred citation:

[Identification of item] THE PLAYSCRIPTS COLLECTION, P-200, Department of Special Collections, General Library, University of California, Davis.

Background

Scope and content:

The Scripts Collection of the Department of Special Collections consists primarily of 19th and early 20th century American and British acting editions. Various genres are included-comedies, Ethiopian sketches, farces, melodramas, musical comedies, pantomimes, and tragedies, among others.

The bulk of these items are in their original wrappers representing editions of many publishers including Baker, DeWitt, Dicks, French, Lacy, Lea, Penn, and Spencer. In addition, there are some 20th century anthologies and unpublished manuscripts.

Although the vast majority of the scripts are clean copies, there are a few prompt copies and others that are inscribed with signatures, cast members' names, dates, and textual markings.

These scripts are acquired to preserve an historical record, to provide samples of theatrical fare representative of the time and period covered, and to offer unique items which may be considered primary source material.

The Scripts Collection is an "open" collection with additions sought from donors and sellers alike. The collection contains in excess of 1600 titles representing approximtely 850 authors.

Authorities used for authors' names are: English Drama of the Nineteenth Century: An Index and Finding Guide, compiled and edited by James Ellis; Nineteenth-Century American Drama, by Donald L. Hixon and Don A. Hennessee; and English Drama 1900-1930, by Allardyce Nicoll.

Custodial history:

The Scripts Collection was created over more than twenty years through purchases from book dealers. The Department of Special Collections continues to add to this "open" collection.

Physical location:
For current information on the location of these materials, please consult the Special Collections Department.
Physical description:
26 linear feet in 26 boxes

About this collection guide

Collection Guide Author:
Processed by Levi Damon Phillips; machine-readable finding aid created by Jim Sylva
Date Prepared:
© 1993
Date Encoded:
The original records were entered using Word Perfect 5.1 and saved as ASCII text. Each record consisted of multiple fields. The records were separated by blank lines. Each field consisted of one line and was prefaced by a unique field name abbreviation. Earl Kinmonth's BiblioFile programs and the UNIX sort tool were used to format the records for the different series. The paper finding aid was typeset with a UNIX troff macro as well as troff commands embedded in the records. Various awk scripts were used to convert the original records to SGML records. The original text was edited by Kate Mawdsley and John Skarstad. Technical processing was performed by Kathryn Fitzgerald using bibliographic programs written by Earl Kinmonth, WordPerfect, and MKS Toolkit, UNIX for DOS as noted above. Special thanks to Mark Brader of SoftQuad Publishing Software, for his invaluable technical advice and assistance. Date of source: 1993.

Access and use

Restrictions:

Collection is open for research.

Terms of access:

The library can only claim physical ownership of the Scripts Collection. Users are responsible for satisfying any claimants of literary property.

Preferred citation:

[Identification of item] THE PLAYSCRIPTS COLLECTION, P-200, Department of Special Collections, General Library, University of California, Davis.

Location of this collection:
University of California, Davis, Special Collections, UC Davis Library
100 NW Quad
Davis, CA 95616-5292, US
Contact:
(530) 752-1621
speccoll@ucdavis.edu
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